Two recent developments suggest that
Apple will use and extend its brand power as the primary engine of adoption for its forthcoming iWatch. The first is the launch of the first smartwatches with the new Android Wear OS highlighted at
Google I/O. Although many early reviewers have complained of the constant buzzing of their wrists while wearing the Samsung Neo and the LG G Watches given away at the event, it is clear that (once the kinks are worked out) Google Now on your wrist is a winning (and Apple-beating) proposition. The second is the hiring by Apple of Patrick Pruniaux, former sales director of Swiss luxury watchmaker TAG Heuer to join Angela Ahrendts (ex-Burberry) and Paul Deneve (ex-Yves Saint Laurent) in a fashion triumvirate in Cupertino. If the iWatch were to follow Apple's existing product pattern and launch with one or two model and be sold through Apple's current retail channels, why would it need these heavy hitters?

The answer, I think, is that Apple has realized that their traditional pattern will not work at the scale it requires with the iWatch. The smartwatch has so far been more a matter of push than pull. Device makers consider it a logical category but consumers have largely been indifferent. And first movers have mainly flopped. Although the Pebble has its devoted followers, Samsung's original Gear suffered an astounding 30% return rate at Best Buy stores. A panel of reviewers at VentureBeat pronounced it “relentlessly inessential." The new Android Wear watches promise to be higher on the utility scale and at least neutral in aesthetics, but much tuning of the chemistry of user notification is required before it is clear if users find them essential.

Yes, we know, the iWatch will have some fancy sensors that will make it a more capable device for tracking health and fitness than the Samsung and Android-powered smartwatches so far. But as mobile designer Luke Wroblewski points out in a recent post, what makes wearable valuable to users is not data collection for its own sake, but meaningful data collection. He has been testing every device as they have come out and determined that his key benchmark for their utility is whether he bothers to keep them charged. What motivates him to pack a charger for a device other than data collection? He adds effortless authentication (for instance, the Nymi band, which "makes use of your to heartbeat to authenticate your identity"), contextual notification (like the BagTracker app on the Pebble smartwatch that buzzes you when your suitcase emerges in baggage claim) and faster access to information (like the heads up display on Google Glass.)

Battery life is then a killer issue for wearables, because how often you have to charge sets the bar for the utility necessary to keep them charged. And as I wrote at the beginning of the year, wireless charging will be a must-have feature for the iWatch. But the overall value proposition for smartwatches remains unclear—and will be until a company (likely Apple) makes them seem indispensable. Since almost everyone seems convinced that they need a mobile phone, it is not hard to convince them that that phone should also be a smartphone. But the day has long passed (partially due to the ubiquitousness now of the smartphone) that everyone felt the need to wear a watch,

So it's not ultimately a matter of utility that will determine the growth of the iWatch, but fashion. Enter Ahrendts, Deveve and Pruniaux. As Gruber says, you need to want to wear it irrespective of what it does. Once you are sold and there is a beachfront on your wrist, there is no end to what kinds of useful apps can rush in to fill it. But the egg requires the chicken to hatch it. Without people feeling they need to wear a watch (again) a smartwatch is just another faddish wearable that eventually we forget to charge or replace.

How do you convince the mass of consumers to consider an iWatch to be a necessary accessory for 21st century life? Make it a fashion-forward, celebrity-endorsed object of desire. Make it aspirational (to use the technical marketing term.) And then, once its value and exclusivity is established, transform it into an "attainable luxury," much like the iPhone has become. From this perspective, Apple's fashion executives have a lot to do. To start with Pruniaux, perhaps Apple now intends to sell the iWatch through the same retail channels as luxury watches like TAG Heuer—Tourneau and high-end department stores. Why limit exposure to Apple stores? Plus the carriers don't have the same motivation to sell the iWatch as they do the iPhone. It represents an accessory, not a new data plan.

The other interesting avenue of growth that the fashion team is probably looking at (though I haven't found anyone willing to comment on this) would be iWatch models co-branded with high-end fashion labels. Yes, of course, an iWatch with a Burberry plaid strap, but Charlie No's design concept gives an inkling of what a TAG Heuer or Rolex branded iWatch might look like. And why stop there? Why not Chanel or Michael Kors?

As far fetched as this might sound, it would really just be the externalization of what Apple has been doing as a software and media platform. When Apple announced its Health platform for iOS 8 at WWDC, the prime spotlight went to the well-known (and respected) brands that had agreed to develop apps for it like Nike and the Mayo Clinic. In this context, the Beats acquisition makes a bit of sense as well. Jimmy Iovine and Dr. Dre owe a lot of the success of their headphones to celebrity product placement among rappers, DJs and pro athletes. This same strategy seems to be in the works as evidenced by recent rumors about Kobe Bryant and other pro athletes testing the iWatch. All of these moves can now be seen in the context of Apple both as a high-end brand itself and also as a powerhouse for other high-end brands as well.

I contend that Apple is in the process of building a brand strategy that will make the smartwatch in general and the iWatch in particular ubiquitous in the high-end retail environment and in popular culture. Through this positioning all of the utility promised for health, fitness and contextual information will be delivered—but that is the cart not the horse. The horse driving the cart is the brand and the brand is Apple. The disappointing news for investors, perhaps, is that this is a slower build than some enthusiastic analysts have been predicting. But it is a logical approach. The high price and exclusivity of the initial offering will help cover up for the production difficulties that have been reported which would make a big launch difficult anyway. This way, Apple can work out the kinks under the cover of luxury before making the iWatch another device you feel you gotta have.

I am a designer and developer and content strategist. I use my experience as a magazine art director and web editor to help publishers, marketers, non-profits and self-branded individuals tell their stories in words and images. I follow all of the technologies that relate to...